Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1928

We were in Chefoo through August and September. Athletic activities were encouraged ashore so I joined a small group that arranged to go over to the Mission compound and practice tennis twice a week. We played matches and reported the scores in the ship's newsletter, but I think the thing that we looked forward to most was stopping at C. May Lee's restaurant just across the street and consuming beer and sandwiches before time to return to the ship. We even had a charge account and just signed a chit each time we stopped in and settled up on payday. May Lee gave us back the chits then and I still have six of them today in my scrap book in 1975. Life in Chefoo could go on for months as far as I was concerned but all good things have to come to an end. However it was a good move because we took a couple of State Department people on board and headed for Yokohama. Arrived there on October 6th and anchored for a week. There were many evidences of the terrible earthquake of 1923 still about the city and we passed a stone fort on the way into the harbor that looked like a pile of jackstraws. I went up to Tokyo twice and stayed at the Marunouchi Hotel - very modern. I saw no evidence of earthquake in Tokyo at all. It was an enormous city even then and I roamed all over it. Many of the streetcar conductors were women and that was a novelty to me then. I often got lost but the system of having a great many little glass-walled police boxes on street corners was most helpful as I had learned a few words of Japanese and the police usually knew a few words of English so they could point out the way I wanted to go. I was much impressed by the sight of the roof of the Imperial Palace behind its high wall across the moat, the Ginza-dori, and the big department stores. (In 1928 two yen and eight sen equalled on American dollar). But Tokyo for me had none of the charm of the southern cities. Next the Trenton moved down to Kobe and I enjoyed another trip to Kyoto and also 24 hours in Osaka, another very large city more industrial than any of the others. Then back to Nagasaki which I always found delightful. I met a Marine construction engineer on this trip who invited me up to his home high on a hill overlooking the harbor. It was really my first opporutnity to see what a well-to-do Japanese home was like. I thought it was a very delightful way of life in warm weather, but I still wonder what it was like in winter.

We arrived back in Shanghai by the end of October. Going back to Shanghai was like going home to me by this time so since I had not had my 30-days leave in the past year I applied for it there even though I knew it was practically never granted to men on light cruisers - I suppose because those ships were always on the move and they were not expected to be away from the States very long. But luck was with me. I had a good record, some influential friends and I had gone back to the Orient on another ship without first having leave at home. So an exception to the rule was made for me. Ithe only restriction made because it was an exotic city - I was required to sign the deck officer's log once every 24 hours. Outside of that I was free as a bird in the Paris of the East. I rented a first-floor apartment on Yuhang Road in the Hongkew section. A houseboy-cook and a rickshaw went with the establishment so I now lived as an old China Hand. This too seems to me like something from another world as indeed it is to the present day generation. My experiences and adventures during this time would fill a book in themselves, therefore I will not attempt to set them down here. Others have written about China of that period so I feel that it is well enough documented.